Burning Uncertainty
by fawny
Summary: "You must do everything in your power. What others cannot do, that is what you must do for my Edward." The doubts in his mind are nearly enough to convince him otherwise. ONESHOT. Carlisle's thoughts before Edward's fateful transformation.


My first fanfiction ever - had to write this after rereading _Twilight_ and _New Moon_ so many times.

Just as a warning, this totally sucks even after being edited. xPPP When I wrote it, I hadn't read _Eclipse_ yet, and _Breaking Dawn_ hadn't been released, so this was just my version of Edward's transformation, really. And boy was it bad. But more about that below.

Carlisle's POV, obviously.

REVISED: 7/8/10

* * *

"Save him!"

The words still echoed in my head, ghostly and haunting, long after I'd checked on Elizabeth Masen for the last time.

"I'll do everything in my power," I had replied while holding her thin hand in my own. Her hand had been so frail, so powerless in mine. For a second I wondered if she comprehended the dissimilarity between our two palms, the rosy warmth of hers compared to my own—and then I chided myself for being such an idiot. She was dizzy with fever; how would she notice the differences between our hands?

"You must," she snapped, staring at me with those oddly sharp emerald eyes. So bright, even while she was dying. I gaped at her as she continued in a rasping, weary voice, "You must do everything in _your_ power. What others cannot do, that is what you must do for my Edward."

Then she'd collapsed against her pillow, intense gaze burning with vehemence before closing for the last time. And the Spanish influenza snatched her from the world forever.

I stood there, still gripping her now limp hand, for what seemed like hours to me but logically had to be several minutes. Finally, I turned on my heels and strode to her son who rested, feeble, on the hospital bed beside his mother. My eyes swept over his face as I contemplated his mother's words and just what the hell I was supposed to do.

_ D__o you honestly believe that turning him, this young boy, into a vampire will help in the slightest?_ Yet somehow I could not bring myself to back away from Edward. How could I just leave this boy here alone to die? What about his mother's final request? How could I simply ignore it?

_ Don't be a fool._ I faltered when my conscience spoke out again. Now I was completely confused about what was moral and what was plain foolish. _You promised yourself not to do this! Have you no sense of right and wrong? You've thought this over before, __Carlisle__, and you can't just… change him on a mere impulse!_

Another wave of uncertainty washed over me as I thought furiously, and I rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet. What was I supposed to do now? I had two options: dismiss the wishes of Edward's mother and let him die in peace, or I could… I sighed and rubbed a hand over my eyes, resigned, but I let myself at least consider the alternative. Or I could give him a fair chance at survival by turning him into a vampire. But how could I carry that out? Turning him into a _vampire_, the very monster that I detested so…

_Well, why are you still deliberating over this? You should know what choice to make by now,_ part of me thought, unhappy but resolute, while I stood rooted to the spot. My eyes closed to refrain from looking at Elizabeth's face, heated even in death. _Let him pass away, like he should._

But somehow I simply could not allow the poor boy move on into the afterworld to join his mother.

_Letting him pass away when he doesn't deserve it is the wrong thing to do,_ the other side of me declared angrily. _How could you just let a young teenager, one so harmless and innocent, _die?_ It's a repulsive thought, and you know it. Now make up your mind, __Carlisle__, and _take your pick._ Will you let him die, or will you give him a chance?_

Biting my lip in anguish, I opened my eyes slowly and let them travel over the boy's face.

He had his mother's hair: a peculiar bronze shade. And although they were closed tightly now, perhaps for the last time, I was sure that I had seen his eyes before; he had inherited yet another of Elizabeth's eye-catching features. I would miss those deep green eyes if he too succumbed to the fever. It was easy to see that Edward Masen had his mother's lovely looks.

But should I let him depart into death? Or should I let him live?

A despairing groan escaped my lips, and I looked more closely at Edward's face. He had a calm, peaceful look about him, unlike his mother. As though he had accepted the idea of death and was waiting for the end to come…

And suddenly, courage sprung into me at the sight of his tranquil expression. My mind was made up. Half of me was absolutely livid—but the other half was proud.

* * *

7/8/10: Well, this was simply awful. -sigh- I was tempted to delete it without having to go through the hassle of editing it, but this _was_ my first fic, after all.

So this was really, really hard to edit because I haven't read the _Twilight_ series in forever, and I'm not good at writing from a vampire's perspective. But whatever. :p ...Well, okay, this still sucks a lot, but I cleaned it of stylistic and mechanical errors, so even though the writing/idea themselves are bad, the grammar's not as awful.

This used to be a story about Edward's transformation, but I decided to delete that part because I like it better without that. Not that I like it, though. It still sucks. c:

Thankfully, this is the last _Twilight_ story I'm gonna write, ever, because I really don't like the series. And to those who ask why, then, did I write this in the first place: I liked the books when I first wrote this. It's just the fact that this is my first story that keeps me from deleting this altogether. So. Yeah. :D


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